International Relations News

Promote Seoul Event Held in São Paulo, Brazil

A series of events to promote Seoul were held in São Paulo, Brazil, the center of hallyu on the South American continent.

The “I·SEOUL·U in São Paulo” event was held in São Paulo over two days on August 12th and 13th to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Seoul and São Paulo.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) Promotion booth was set up at Bom Retiro, the Korea Town of São Paulo, starting at 2pm on August 12th and a large number of people crowded around the booth, promising a good start to the event.

At the booth, the SMG operated a state-of-the-art IT experience space, which many people took pictures of and shared them on their SNS, and also held a special event with prizes including a K-pop cover dance battle, receiving a lot of attention from Koreans residents and Brazilian locals.

The Korean Culture Day event was also held while the “I·SEOUL·U in São Paulo” event was taking place. The culture day event featured various Korean culture performances including K-pop, traditional dance, B-boying, samul nori, and taekwondo demonstration. It also held an exhibition of works by Korean resident artists including calligraphy, Korean painting, pottery, and craftwork.

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of Seoul and São Paulo entering into a sister city relationship since signing an agreement in April 1977. The two cities have been steadily exchanging ideas and resources in urban transportation, culture and other areas.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon visited São Paulo in 2012 to discuss ways to preserve nature in the two cities as well as traffic and air pollution-related policies and invited São Paulo Mayor João Doria to Seoul in April 2017 to present him with Honorary Seoul Citizenship.

The São Paulo City Council designated Bom Retiro as the Korea Town of the city in January 2010 and the São Paulo Local Government officially designated August 15 as Korean Culture Day in 2017.